£1billion telescope can see the beginning of time
By Hayley Dixon, telegraph.co.ukA £1bn telescope that can see the beginning of time has been unveiled in Chile today.
Scientists hope the Atacama Large Millimeter Array, or ALMA, will allow astronomers to see back to the first moments after the universe was formed.
Bu…
So, you wanna know what galaxies looked like 12 billion years ago? Sure, why not…
Caffeinated Cravings: Putting The Buzz Back In Your Bumble…
It seems it’s not just us humans who seek out regular caffeine kicks - the bees are at it as well! New research has shown that honey bees are three times more likely to remember and seek out food associated with the smell of a coffee or citrus plant (both of which naturally contain caffeine) than food presented without these scents. Well, would you blame ‘em?!…
Christy Ullrich of NGS reports:
Bitter-tasting caffeine primarily arose in plants as a toxic defense against herbivores like garden slugs. At high doses, caffeine can be toxic and repellent to pollinators.
However, at low concentrations, caffeine appears to have a secondary advantage, attracting honeybees and enhancing their long-term memory, said lead author Geraldine Wright, a neuroscientist at Newcastle University in England, whose study was published online March 7 in the journal Science.
“We show that caffeine—a compound whose ecological role is mainly to deter and poison herbivores—actually acts like a drug in an ecologically relevant context,” Wright said. “The plant is secretly drugging the pollinator. It may help the bee, but the plant cares more about having a pollinator with high fidelity!”
Read the rest of the report via NGS here.
Uhhhhh, say what now?!!….
Blowing Smoke: Hydrothermal Howdy-Doo-Dees…
Some UK scientisties have recently discovered yet another mind-blowing set of hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor in the Caribbean. This latest group have been found at deeper depths than any others (only about 5,000 metres!). They are also reportedly the hottest yet discovered (around 400C, compared to surrounding water temperatures of only around 4C!)
This is all very well and very good, you may very well declare, but what the very heck is a hydrothermal vent anyway?!? What indeed. So here you are - you’re very own basic introduction to hydrothermal vents, aka deep sea vents, courtesy of those clever whomevers over at Wikipedia (I’d write a bling-lingoed up EcoLOLogist-style version, but quite frankly, I’m too tired. Zzzzzz…….)
A hydrothermal vent is a fissure in a planet’s surface from which geothermally heated water issues. Hydrothermal vents are commonly found near volcanically active places, areas where tectonic plates are moving apart, ocean basins, and hotspots. Hydrothermal vents exist because the earth is both geologically active and has very large amounts of water on its surface and within its crust. Common land types include hot springs, fumaroles and geysers. Under the sea, hydrothermal vents may form features called black smokers. Relative to the majority of the deep sea, the areas around submarine hydrothermal vents are biologically more productive, often hosting complex communities fueled by the chemicals dissolved in the vent fluids. Chemosynthetic archaea form the base of the food chain, supporting diverse organisms, including giant tube worms, clams, limpets and shrimp. Active hydrothermal vents are believed to exist on Jupiter’s moon Europa, and ancient hydrothermal vents have been speculated to exist on Mars.
Some hydrothermal vents form roughly cylindrical chimney structures. These form from minerals that are dissolved in the vent fluid. When the superheated water contacts the near-freezing sea water, the minerals precipitate out to form particles which add to the height of the stacks. Some of these chimney structures can reach heights of 60 m. An example of such a towering vent was “Godzilla”, a structure in the Pacific Ocean near Oregon that rose to 40 m before it fell over.
A black smoker or sea vent is a type of hydrothermal vent found on the seabed, typically in the abyssal and hadal zones. They appear as black, chimney-like structures that emit a cloud of black material. The black smokers typically emit particles with high levels of sulfur-bearing minerals, or sulfides. Black smokers are formed in fields hundreds of meters wide when superheated water from below Earth's crust comes through the ocean floor. This water is rich in dissolved minerals from the crust, most notably sulfides. When it comes in contact with cold ocean water, many minerals precipitate, forming a black, chimney-like structure around each vent. The deposited metal sulfides can become massive sulfide ore deposits in time.
Black smokers were first discovered in 1977 on the East Pacific Rise by scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. They were observed using a deep submergence vehicle called ALVIN belonging to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Now, black smokers are known to exist in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, at an average depth of 2100 metres. The most northerly black smokers are a cluster of five named Loki’s Castle, discovered in 2008 by scientists from the University of Bergen at 73°N, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between Greenland and Norway. These black smokers are of interest as they are in a more stable area of the Earth’s crust, where tectonic forces are less and consequently fields of hydrothermal vents are less common. The world’s deepest black smokers are located in the Cayman Trough, 5,000 m (3.1 miles) below the ocean’s surface.
White smoker vents emit lighter-hued minerals, such as those containing barium, calcium, and silicon. These vents also tend to have lower temperature plumes. These alkaline hydrothermal vents also continuously generate acetyl thioesters, providing both the starting point for more complex organic molecules and the energy needed to produce them. Microscopic structures in such alkaline vents “show interconnected compartments that provide an ideal hatchery for the origin of life”.
Find out more about them and their super-heated awesomesauce here.
Murky Mentalness: Deep Ocean Vents Just Got Deeper, And Hotter…
Scientists working at the deep sea trench known as the Cayman Trough (near the Cayman islands in the Caribbean) have recently discovered a new group of vents which reading show are the deepest (at 4,968 metres - approximately 3 miles) and hottest (401 degrees celcius) to be found yet. The scientists are hoping the research they are conducting in this mysterious black-water-belching murkiness can help us better understand exactly how, and why life has come to exist in such extremely hostile environments. See some video footage and read more from BBC News’ David Shukman here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21520404
Periplaneta americanaThe American cockroach^ (native to Africa)
Yes, introduced from Africa to the United States as early as 1625, this neat little Neoptera is owed some thanks from us for helping to shape our early understanding of the neuro-endocrine system:
German-born American biologist Berta Scharrer (1906–1995) and her biologist husband Ernst Scharrer pioneered the field of neuroendocrinology, the study of the interaction between the nervous system and the endocrine glands and their secretions. Fighting against accepted scientific beliefs about cells—as well as against prejudice toward women in the sciences—Scharrer established the concept of neurosecretion, or the releasing of substances such as hormones by nerve cells.
Prior to the discoveries of Scharrer and her husband, scientists believed that neurons or nerve cells could not have a dual function. They either secreted hormones, in which case they were endocrine cells belonging to the endocrine system, or they conducted electrical impulses, making them nerve cells belonging to the nervous system.
In the 1930s, after having come to America, Scharrer and her husband set out to prove their theories with no real professional standing and therefore lacking a budget for lab animals. Scharrer reportedly collected cockroaches in the basement of the lab and used them for experiments. Soon she began experimenting on South American cockroaches she had discovered scurrying around in the bottom of a cage of lab monkeys that had arrived from South America. Scharrer found that they made better research subjects because they were slower than the American cockroach. From that point forward, she used the South American cockroaches, which traveled with her wherever she and her husband moved.
By 1950, Scharrer’s research and theories on neurosecretion had become accepted as fact by the scientific community. For her pioneering scientific work, Scharrer received many honors. Included among these was the naming of a cockroach species, scharrerae , in her honor.
(via scientificillustration)
Source: library.wur.nl
Strange Squeakcies: This Frog’s Call Ain’t No Croak…
Recorded by wildlife enthusiast and photographer Dean Boshoff among the sand dunes of Port Nolloth in South Africa’s Northern Cope province, this first YouTube video of his went viral within a matter of days - and it’s easy to see why. Or, rather, hear why. You’d be forgiven for suspecting that this is nothing more than the result of some doggy-chew-toy-dub-over of a hoax. However this is the real deal folks. Yup, that sound is actually coming out of that animal!
This little sandy ball of hilarious squeaky cuteness is a desert rain frog* (Breviceps macrops). Although it has elsewhere been reported to be a mating call, the sound it’s so ardently emitting is actually a warning call, triggered by the presence of a threat such as a predator (or in this case, most likely the perceived threat of big bad Dean and his camera). Other species of frog are also known to make this type of warning call and a quick search of YouTube will bring up more examples of it, however I’ve yet been able to find one that’s quite as cute as this lil’ guy!
The desert rain frog is a fossorial species, spending most of its life buried under the sand hiding from predators (hence the state of our new celebrity) and only surfaces at night to feed. Its eggs are laid in underground chambers and are covered in a thick, viscous, jelly-like substance. Once the eggs hit tadpole stage, the jelly softens into a fluid in which they live until they fully metamorphose into frogs (absorbing nutrients from the egg yolk as they grow). This lack of dependence on water for the tadpole stage is what makes this dumpy dude particularly and uniquely suited to life in an arid environment.
So there you have it; the desert rain frog; sandy, silly, squeaky and all together supersauce, No go press play again. You know you want to, tee hee…
A Foot-Long Seahorse
Seahorses range in size—from as small as a pine nut to as large as a banana. The largest seahorse species is Hippocampus abdominalis, or the big-bellied seahorse, which can reach more than a foot long (35 cm) and lives in the waters off Southern Australia and New Zealand.
The smallest seahorse, Satomi’s pygmy seahorse (Hippocampus satomiae), which was only described in 2008, is only half an inch long (13 mm)! It lives in the waters of Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia.
(CREDIT: David Maynard / Guylian Seahorses of the World 2005, Courtesy of Project Seahorse)
(via: Smithsonian’s Ocean Portal)
(via rhamphotheca)
How Many Seahorse Species?
There are 47 different species of seahorses and 14 of those were discovered in the last eight years, including Pontoh’s pygmy seahorse (Hippocampus pontohi), which was officially named in 2008. Seahorses’ ability to change their color and shape to blend in with their environment makes identification of individual species challenging.
Because of this, some researchers previously thought there were as many as 200 seahorse species in the world, while others thought there were as few as 20. However, advances in genetic research are helping to clarify some of the differences between closely related species.
(CREDIT: Patrick Decaluwe / Guylian Seahorses of the World 2010, Courtesy of Project Seahorse)
(via: Smithsonian’s Ocean Portal)
(via rhamphotheca)
Rainbow-eyed Surprise: Refraction Of Light Captures Third Prize Delight…
This spectral spectacular (top photo), captured by American photographer Randall Benton, was awarded third prize recently in the Nature (singles) category of the 2013 World Press Photo contest. Although it looks like some weird demon-possessed other-worldly creature of the night, this prize pic shows nothing more sinister than a very-much-of-our-worldly trumpetfish of the Caribbean. The rainbow-eyed effect is the result of light bending as it passes through the eye of the fish which causes it to split into different wavelengths (ie, colours) - a phenomenon known as dispersion.
Trumpetfish (Aulostomus maculatus) are long thin fish who derive their name from their snouts, which look a bit like - you guessed it - a trumpet. Masters of disguise, trumpetfish can often be found hanging out around pipe sponges, sea fans and sea whips in a vertical, head down position which helps them to blend in with their surroundings as they wait for unsuspecting prey to pass by or indeed, try to avoid becoming prey themselves. They are also known to swim alongside the vertical lines of other fish while hunting. The trumpetfish’s mouth is able to stretch to a size equal to the diameter of its body and creates a vacuum which sucks up its prey (this is known as “pipette feeding”). Typically a mottled reddish-brown in colour, these fish can also change their colour to suit their surroundings, much like squid and octopus do.
Changes in colouration are also observed during trumpetfish courtship rituals (known as “dances”. For a video complete with groovy guitar music, see here). As with their close relatives the seahorses, it is the male trumpetfish who carries most of the reproductive burden. Having received eggs from the female following a successful courtship (score!), he then fertilizes them and carries them in a special pouch until they are born. Haha, suckers…
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